


Childe In Need

by Kuragari



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: A little Buffy bashing, Angel's less of a hypocrite, M/M, Mother Hen Angel, Souled!Spike, beat up Spike, just cause I'm a sucker for Spike, post-season 2 (Ats), post-season 6 (btvs), sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuragari/pseuds/Kuragari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sire…”<br/>Angel froze as the softly spoken word reached his ears.<br/>No. Fucking. Way. It couldn’t be.<br/>He spun to the spot the voice had come from, bracing himself for a fight. What met his gaze was quiet different from what he had expected.</p><p>(or a different take on Spike getting his soul and how Angel reacts)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On your doorstep

Angel stopped mid-stride in the courtyard, a feeling he couldn't describe shooting up his spine. He had just gotten back from a hunt, nice nest of vamps feeding on the locals, and was headed back into the Hyperion hotel that was his home. But as soon as he entered the courtyard, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was no longer alone.  
The hotel itself looked quiet, most of its occupants grabbing some sleep while they could. No doubt it had been Cordy who had left the lights in the lobby on for him. Angel scanned the garden surrounding him, still feeling eyes on his back. The gaze didn't feel threatening though. Maybe it was an animal or homeless person squatting for the night in the grounds. Shrugging it off, Angel turned back towards the door.  
“Sire…”  
Angel froze as the softly spoken word reached his ears.  
No. Fucking. Way. It couldn't be.  
He spun to the spot the voice had come from, bracing himself for a fight. What met his gaze was quiet different from what he had expected. In the corner near the door was a huddled mass of dirty pale skin and filthier blonde hair. Angel approached slowly, using every sense he had to try and find a trap. There was none that he could detect, but he remained wary as he approached the collapsed form huddled against the wall. Once he was able to see more clearly, Angel sucked in an unneeded breath in shock.  
Spike was covered in blood, his own by the scent of it. He was frightfully skinny and unbelievably pale, even for a vampire. His hair had become matted and curly, the once meticulous hair style now neglected and soiled. He had no clothes except for black pants that had been torn to hell and his black leather duster pulled across his lap.  
Angel had never seen the other vampire in such a pathetic state. Not even when Spike had been confined to a wheel chair had he looked so miserable. Something was very, very off.  
He knelt down before the other man slowly, looking into dulled blue eyes. The eyes both were and weren’t looking at him. It was as if Spike was seeing him but not as he was now.  
“Childe?” He called softly, reaching one hand up, stopping just short of brushing unruly blonde locks off of Spike’s forehead. Even though the vampire had just called out to him, he still jerked back, as if startled by Angel’s appearance before him.  
“Sire?” he croaked, his voice scratchy and weak.  
What the hell had happened to him? What on Earth would reduce William the Bloody to this pathetic creature?  
“Yeah, Childe, it’s me,” he said gently, trying to sound as calming as possible. A small, sad smile answered him.  
“You never said it burned this much…” Angel’s brow furrowed in confusion.  
“ Never said what burned this much?”  
“The light. When it enters you, it burns,” Spike answered, starting to giggle deliriously. “Burns the body, burns the mind because you’re evil, you’re bad, dirty, filthy, murderer, you are…”  
Spike was laughing now but tears were running down his face and he grabbed his head as if afraid it would fall off. Angel froze at the broken babbling, feeling a cold stab of memory in his core and suddenly he knew, he knew what had happened to Spike. He moved forward but the younger vampire flinched away, misinterpreting the advance as threatening. Angel held up his hands in a placating gesture.  
“Easy, Childe, I just want to help,” he spoke quietly, moving more slowly towards the blonde.  
“‘Help’ he says, but why should he help? Doesn’t need, doesn’t deserve help. Monster, we are, and no one helps a monster…”  
“Childe…” Spike had started rocking back and forth with his head held in his hands. Angel took the opportunity to move closer, trying to break the blonde out of it.  
“We kill, they scream and we bathe in their blood, nothing but a monster who deserves to die a true death…”  
“Spike?”  
“… but we can’t do it ourselves, the demon’s too scared. So Sire will, sire who hates, he’ll do it, he can kill the wretched creature…”  
“Spike!”  
"... he'll finally be rid of it, won't have to deal with it, won't have to look at it, all will be dust and ash..."  
Angel was just about to get his arms around the delirious vampire when he spoke a name he hadn’t said in decades.  
“William.”  
The smaller vampire’s head shot up and for a moment Angel swore he could actually see the soul in the blue eyes that were filled with tears. Spike began trembling anew and he held his arms out to be picked up, like a small child in need of comfort. Angel scooped him up without hesitation, holding the blonde as he buried his face in his Grandsire’s neck and sobbed.  
“Easy, shhhhhh. I’ve got you, you’re all right. You’re going to be all right, boyo,” Angel soothed, his accent coming through in his distraction as he entered the hotel lobby.  
“Please, Sire, kill me. It hurts too much, you can be rid of me, please, please!” the smaller vampire cried desperately into the brunette’s shoulder.  
“Easy, Will. I promise I’m going to take care of you. It’s all going to be okay,” Angel hushed as he headed for his room. He didn’t even bother with the stairs, leaping straight up to the second floor landing and continuing to his room, grateful all the hotel’s occupants were asleep and he could avoid making a spectacle.  
He felt the blonde go lax against him, his cries dying down and his arms relaxing as the emotionally and physically exhausted vampire passed out in his arms. Angel sighed heavily and placed Spike down on his bed, wondering all the while what the hell he was going to tell the other members of Angel Investigations.  
Ah well, the time for figuring that out would come later, for now he had a very distraught childe to take care of. In truth, Spike was actually his grandechilde, but Drusilla had never been very good about caring for herself, let alone a newly born childer. She had done her best to train him but in the end she just wasn’t enough, so Angelus had taken over the Sire responsibilities for William, effectively taking the boy under his wing.  
After he had gained his soul and left his little ‘family’, Angel still had kept his Sire status over William and Drusilla, not trusting Darla to look after either of his childer. Sure, he thought they were evil and would probably one day need to be taken care of, but that didn’t mean he still didn’t care about them. And as long as he was Sire, Darla couldn’t hurt them… much. He hadn't even done that for Penn, the one he had trained specially for many years.  
Once upon a time, Spike and Dru had been his absolute favorites and a piece of him still recognized his responsibilities to them. Angel tucked his charge into his bed and sat heavily in one of the refurbished armchairs Cordy had put in his room.  
William had been one of Angelus’, one of his favorites, but it seemed his childe had no idea. From what he could gather out of the broken babbling, Spike had come here hoping that Angel would kill him, apparently thinking that since the older vampire hated him so much it would be an easy task.  
He couldn’t have been more wrong.  
Angel treated Spike like crap over the years, he knew that, and he had professed loudly to all how much he despised his grandchilde; and when Angelus had been free, after being pent up for so long he had taken much of his frustrations out on the smaller blonde. It hadn't been the first (or worst) time. He knew all the reasons why Spike and the rest of the world thought he hated him. But he didn’t.  
In many ways, he (as Angel) had always been jealous of him; Whereas Angelus had just found Spike an easy mark. Oddly enough both were due to the same fact that even once he’d turned, William had still been remarkably human. Sure he killed and slaughtered with the rest of them, but he had believed in things like destiny and love, two ideals most vampires let go of once they’d been turned. Angel didn’t know if it had been a flaw due to Drusilla’s… uniqueness or what. But the truth was, Spike had always been the more human of the two of them, and he envied him that. Angelus had killed his loved ones without a moment’s hesitation after he’d turned, Spike had tried to keep his mother with him for eternity. True it had ended the same way, but that had wounded the vampire in a way that the death of Angel’s family hadn’t. And even when the blonde had been torturing him for the ring of Amara, nothing he did had been half as bad as what Angelus would have done just for fun.  
William truly was a unique vampire, and Angel thought it was incredible but he had been rejecting him (once he was no longer Angelus) due to the fact that Spike was still a soulless vampire. No matter how human he appeared he would still kill without a second’s thought and betray those close to him in his own self-interest.  
But now…  
Angel watched his charge as he slept, running through all the scenarios that could have landed Spike with a soul and how he was going to help him. Because he was going to help him, no matter what the others had to say about it, no matter what Spike himself had to say about it, he would help his childe.  
He checked and double-checked the windows to make sure no sunlight would disturb his charge and settled begrudgingly into the large armchair across from the bed. It wouldn't be the best day's sleep he'd ever had, but he would be rested enough. Soon the night caught up with him and he slowly succumbed to sleep.


	2. Waking Nightmare

All he could hear was screaming. All he could smell was blood. All he could feel was burning. And all he knew was that it was all his fault. Thousands of innocent faces played before his eyes; all of them whole at first, but then they became progressively more mutilated. The skin was torn apart, blood sprayed everywhere, the eyes fell open in vacant stares with looks of absolute terror still captured on the features. He had done this.  
William could feel his hands, cruel and unfeeling breaking the frail mortals while his teeth ripped hungrily into throats to get at the warm nectar underneath.  
No, this wasn't William, at least, not the human William. These images were visions from 'William the Bloody', the demon called Spike that had taken over his life. And he had let it happen all because of that woman.  
More visions of death fell over him and he began to struggle, fight against the rivers of blood trying to drown him. The dead rose up all around him, people he had killed, tortured, maimed, all of them grabbing for him, trying to pull him under and destroy him. He tried to keep his head above the thick red water but he was slipping under, dragged by the weight of the innocents he'd killed. He screamed.

Angel was yanked violently out of his sleep by his childe's cries. He bolted up and rushed to the bed where Spike was thrashing and screaming, tangled in the blankets.  
"Will!" He shouted, pulling the sheets away and grabbing the frantic blonde, waking Spike suddenly. Blue eyes snapped open, their depths filled with panic and fear but calming slightly once they settled on Angel.  
"Sire?" he gasped out, clutching a little at his head.  
"I'm here, Will," the older vamp assured him. He looked over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps running up the hall. Great, just what he needed. "And it seems everyone else is about to be too."  
He turned back to Spike to find, well 'Spike' looking back at him.  
"Bloody hell! Angel?" The blonde blinked a few times and looked around the room, backing up against the headboard. "Whe' the hell am I?"  
Angel stood, putting himself between the door and the bed just as the entire gang came bursting in.  
"Angel?" Cordelia called following an armed Wesley and Gunn through the doorway. "We heard screaming, is everything..."  
They all froze at the sight of a shirtless and dirty Spike on the bed.  
"...okay?" Cordelia finished, giving Angel a confused and slightly alarmed look. Soon Lorne and Fred joined them as well, making Angel feel really crowded.  
"What the hell is going on?" Spike shouted, glaring around the room.  
"Hey! That's our line, mister!" Cordy shouted back, pointing a manicured nail at the blonde.  
"Angel, what is he doing here?" Wesley's tone was calmer, but no less demanding, his grip steady on a crossbow.  
"That's what I'd like to know!" Spike yelled, looking at Angel furiously before suddenly grabbing his head and starting to giggle deliriously. "Everyone's so loud! All shouting at me. 'Go, go, go to hell!' they say, but aren't I there?"  
"Uh, Angel-cakes, I think he's broken," Lorne said, watching the blonde with wary concern.  
"I know," Angel said, moving back to the younger vamp's side. "Will? You all right, boyo?"  
Spike just started violently shaking his head, his laughing turning hysterical.  
"Never all right, never been all right. Light burns and shows, reveals the demon and won't let me be all right!" Angel's brow creased in concern as Spike's babbling got worse. The others in the room shared confused looks and Fred sidled up to Cordy.  
"I don't get it. Who is that?" she asked quietly. Cordy sighed dramatically and crossed her arms.  
"Just one of Angel's old vampire proteges. Trust me, he's a pain in the ass."  
"All right, uh, I think Angel has this under control. Why don't we give them a moment?" Wesley stepped in and started trying to move everyone out the door. Cordy put up a fuss and Gunn looked very unwilling to leave, tightening the grip on his favorite axe.  
"A moment?" Spike giggled loudly. "I've got eternity!" Then he starting singing a few lines of 'Danny-boy' in slurred and wobbly lines before descending into more crazed giggles.  
"No no! Wes' right. Come on, chickadees," Lorne piped up, herding everyone out of the room. "We can interrogate later, now scoot." He turned back before shutting the door to look at Angel. "I'll talk to you when you're done, pumpkin."  
Angel gave the empathic demon a grateful smile before turning back to his troubled charge. Spike had quieted down and was just holding his head breathing heavily. The brunette reached out a hand but didn't touch the other vampire, uncertain if it would set him off.  
"Will?"  
"Great bloody bollocks on fire, would you stop calling me that." The blonde bit out quietly without looking up. Angel dropped his hand and backed up a little.  
"How are you feeling?" he asked. Spike laughed bitterly and shot him a miserable look from under his hands.  
"How the fuck d'you think I'm feeling?" he growled. They sat in silence for a long while after that until finally Angel couldn't take it. He didn't know how long Spike would be mostly lucid for.  
"So... you have a...?" he started uncertainly. His childe just scoffed.  
"Yeah."  
"When did...?"  
"A few months ago."  
"Fuck."  
"Yeah."  
"How did it happen?" The older vamp asked.  
"Demon Trials," Spike muttered, spitting the words out like foul blood. "I did them, made a wish, a bad wish, and they shoved fire down my throat."  
Another silence stretched out between them as Angel absorbed that information. He was shocked that Spike had gone through the Demon Trials, let alone passed them. He had thought that maybe the other had been cursed, like himself or something similar. Why would Spike have fought so hard for his soul back? What had made him want it so much?  
"Spike... you know I'm here for you... right?" the brunette says uncertainly. "I'll help you through this however I can."  
The hysterical laughter was back but with an undertone of bitterness.  
"Oh fuck me sideways with a chainsaw, Angel, I didn't know you gave a fuck!" Spike shouted, finally looking Angel in the eye.  
"Of course I do," he answered levelly. “You're a pain in the ass, but that's nothing new, so of course I care.”  
"Oh fuck you!" Spike yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Angel. "You selfish fucking tosser! Fuck you, and your poncing white horse! You never fucking gave a shit about me, ever! No it's only now that I've got myself a soul that you suddenly give a flying fuck! Fuck you, FUCK you... GYAHHHH!!"  
The blonde let out a splitting scream and grabbed his head as his body pitched forward into Angel's chest.  
"Spike!" Angel held him as he writhed in pain, blue eyes looking up at him in misery.  
"Kill me... please... I can't take it anymore... this isn't... I didn't want..." he groaned pitifully and tried to roll away from the other vamp but Angel held him fast.  
"I know, boyo, I know," he soothed, holding him tight and rocking his childe slightly. "I know it hurts but it'll get better. You'll get through this I promise."  
"I don't want it, I don't want it!" the blonde started struggling, fighting his arms free of Angel's grip and trying to scratch at his chest. "I don't want this! Get it out!" His nails dug into skin that had only just begun to heal before Angel was able to recapture his hands.  
"Spike, stop! It won't help." He pulled him close again, trying to keep the frantic vampire from hurting himself further. Spike collapsed, the fight suddenly going out of him as he lay against Angel. He started crying again, softer then before, and as Angel held him he was reminded again of how thin his childe had become.  
"Spike, boyo, when was the last time you ate?" he asked quietly when the cries had died down a little.  
"Don't know, don't care. Can't... eat. It's wrong, it's sick, but I need... I can't..." he quieted down, shaking his head and pulling away to fall limply against the pillows.  
"Do you think you can stomach animal blood?" Angel urged. Spike just shrugged, curling up on himself in the covers. Angel slowly stood, wondering if he should leave his childe alone. Spike glanced up at him, blue eyes rolling as he sighed.  
"For fuck's sake, Angel, stop staring at me like I'm about to shatter and get me some blood already!" he spat in frustration.  
"Right, I'll be right back," the brunette responded. He made his way out of the room and towards the stairs, taking a long moment on the upper landing to prepare for the interrogation awaiting him in the lobby. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like imagining Angel saying 'boyo' a lot, don't know why lol. Anyway if you've read this at all, THANK YOU! of course Kudos and Comments are welcome but when are they not? Again I'm so sorry this is not going to keep updating this quick, I'm terrible at keeping up on my stories and sometimes they can sit for a bit before I'm struck with enough energy and inspiration to continue. I hope you enjoy what's here at least and thank you of course for reading at all :)

**Author's Note:**

> (cross-posted from AFF.net)  
> I was just never a huge fan of how Angel treated Spike after he(spike) got his soul... so I wrote a slightly different take. BE WARNED!! I do not know where this story is really going as of yet, I have a vague idea but that could take me a long time to actually work out and type up. So I'm sad to say this probably won't update that frequently. I'm really bad at it and I'm so sorry. Hopefully you'll still be willing to give me a chance and read this and just know I'm always working on it, it just takes me a while to get chapters to a point where I like them.  
> Thank you so much for reading and reviews and kudos are always welcome and appreciated!


End file.
